Mission Three: Shadow of Arachne

Created by Commodore Jacob Kane on Thu Jul 29th, 2021 @ 8:02am

On patrol in the borderlands near Cardassian space, the Athena picks up a distress call from the USS Pico, which has been disabled by an ion storm near the Badlands.

Although nothing appears too unusual at first, it is clear the Pico has drifted further into the dangerous region of space and so rescue is likely to be difficult.

On arrival, they find that the Pico is dead in space - with no life signs left aboard. Worse still is that a pre-recorded message is sent directly to Captain Kane. In it, the vengeful Breen captain Sen Tekk executes the entire command crew of the Pico and gloats over luring the Athena into his trap; intended as vengeance for the loss of his son at the crew's hands.

The Pico's core detonates, severely damaging the Athena just as a pair of Breen destroyers close in on them.

Barely escaping the ambush but with little hope of getting away before the Breen catch them, Lt Danton devises a way of potentially fooling the Breen sensors with a deflector pulse. At the same moment, security discovers a saboteur on board: a Bolian Commander originally assigned to the Pico called Brill. His sabotage, combined with the deflector pulse, knock the Athena out of normal space into somewhere previously undiscovered.

In this new realm, almost complete darkness reigns. The crew begin encountering horrific hallucinations, causing them to attack one another or abandon their posts. With a further two clones of Brill discovered roaming the ship and captured, the crew have to fight their fears to return things to normal again.

Bravely overcoming their own traumatic experiences, the crew manage to recreate the pulse that sent them into this 'nightmare space'. Although heavily damaged by events, they have evaded the Breen forces sent to intercept them and manage to return to the safety of a starbase for repairs.